Economies of favour after socialism: A comparative perspective
January 20-21, 2012
Wolfson College
University of Oxford
http://www.ecofavour.info/
One of the most pervasive features of ‘actually existing socialism’ in Eurasia and the Former Eastern Bloc was the use of personalized connections in order to get access to goods, services, and information despite the shortages of the command economy. Known as blat in Russian, znajmosci in Polish, and guanxi in China, this rich and multifaceted practice combined horizontal and vertical exchange relations to create what Alena Ledeneva has aptly named ‘economies of favours’, embracing aspects of gift exchange, clientelism, and bribery. These networks functioned on multiple levels, ranging from individual consumption to state enterprises, and existed in a symbiotic relationship with the command economy, mitigating distribution problem, bringing in hard currency, and obtaining necessary information. In this light, it might be expected that such informal economic practices would have fallen out of use in the two decades following the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. With the expansion of the European Union into Central and South Eastern Europe, the marketization of China, and the tentative liberalization of the Cuban economy, market capitalism appears victorious. Liberalization has not only introduced (and introduced through) novel social and economic practices, but marked such practices as rational, progressive, and fair. Yet, despite the triumphant, top-down driven rhetoric of economic liberalism, ethnographic accounts reveal a vigorous continuity of the ‘economies of favour’ across the region, albeit in various new forms.
The apparent persistence of this class of social and economic practices in the post-socialist world suggests that they are embedded in the social fabric and moral imagination of contemporary everyday life, rather than simply a leftover from the socialist era. Informal personal networks are still a major source of foodstuffs and consumer goods, as well as credit and employment. Connections can be a vital channel for providing financing and labour for everything from house-building to new business ventures. In the ever-changing environment of socio-economic and political change, networks can be a force for reassembling alternative moral communities, carving out spaces of creativity, and offering resistance to hegemonic forces. For scholars of the region, however, fundamental questions remain to be answered about the significance, form, and reach of these networks. How do such practices articulate and interact with economic reforms, and neo-liberal rhetoric and regulatory frameworks? What is the relationship between capitalism as a subject-making enterprise, and perceptions of intersubjective moral agency supported by a continuing reliance on ‘economies of favours’? What can they tell us about the relationship between custom, corruption, and crime? How is religion and spirituality in the post-socialist context related to the spirit(uality) of exchange?
Preliminary Programme
Friday, 20th of January
9:00 – 10:00Registration (Haldane Room)
10:00 - 10:30Welcome address
Dr Nicolette Makovicky and Dr David Henig
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10:30 - 12:00Keynote I (Haldane Room)
Prof Alena Ledeneva (UCL)
Russia’s Economy of Favours and Beyond: Conceptual Innovation, Methodological Experimentation, and Interdisciplinary Comparisons
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12:00 – 13:30Lunch (Wolfson Hall)
Buffet lunch with vegetarian options
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13:30 – 15:30Panel I Comparative Corruption (Haldane Room)
Chair: Prof Alena Ledeneva (UCL)
Dr Dimitris Dalakoglou (Sussex)
Economies of Favour beyond Postsocialism
Dr Deema Kaneff (Birmingham)
‘Positionality’ and Economies of Favour: A Comparison between Bulgaria and Ukraine
Dr Steffen Gross (Brandenburg)
Economies of Favour: An Institutional Economist’s Approach, and the Case of East Germany
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15:30 – 16:00Coffee Break (Haldane Room)
Coffee/tea and light snacks
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16:00 – 18:00Panel II Resistance, Creativity and Moral Personhood (Haldane Room)
Chair: Prof Michael Carrithers (Durham)
Dr Tomasz Rakowski (Warsaw)
Interior Spectacles
Images of Law and Lawlessness among the Former Miners – Diggers of Bootleg Mines in Wałbrzych in Southwest Poland
Dr Nicolette Makovicky (Oxford)
Kombinujesz, żyjesz….: Doing Business the ‘Górale’ Way?
Dr Johan Rasangayam (Aberdeen)
Informal Economy, Informal State: The Case of Uzbekistan
Dr Gareth Hamilton (Durham)
Still Bending the Rules: Mass-gifts and Sociality among Product Promoters in Eastern Germany
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18:00 – 19:00Publishers Fair /Drinks Reception (Private Dining Room)
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19:00 Conference Dinner (Haldane Room)
Saturday, 21st of January
9:00 – 10:30Keynote II (Haldane Room)
Prof Caroline Humphrey (Cambridge)
Favours, Payments, and Social Obligations
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10:30-11:00Coffee Break (Haldane Room)
Coffee/tea and light snacks
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11:00 – 13:00Panel III Spirit(uality) of Exchange(Haldane Room)
Chair: Prof Caroline Humphrey (Cambridge)
Dr David Henig (Kent)
Halal Money: Of Persons and Divinity of Exchange in Muslim Bosnia
Dr Katherine Swancutt (Oxford)
The Economy of Ordeals and ‘Human Quality’ (Suzhi) Among the Nuosu of Southwest China
Prof Charles Stafford (LSE)
Late socialist Heilongjiang and late capitalist Oklahoma: notes on spirituality and comparative economic psychology
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13:00 – 14:30Lunch Wolfson Hall
Buffet lunch with vegetarian options
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14:30 – 16:30Panel IV Informal economy: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Haldane Room)
Chair: Prof Chris Hann (MPI, Halle)
Dr Christopher Davis (Oxford)
TBA
Dr Peter Rodgers (Leicester)
TBA
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16:30 – 17:00Coffee Break (Haldane Room)
Coffee/tea and light snacks
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17:00 Keynote III & Closing Statement(Haldane Room)
Prof Chris Hann (MPI, Halle)
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